


Promises Made

by Pitseleh



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, KNIGHTS AND SHIT, Worldbuilding, feminist themes? idk not really, going way overboard with that worldbuilding stuff, nextgen, series endfic, unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-27
Updated: 2011-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/pseuds/Pitseleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end, Brienne gets married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises Made

**Author's Note:**

> The fic really got away from me and ran in several directions and this is the first 'post series' fic I've ever written so I got really distracted by worldbuilding and tried to curb it by being vague except I am the MOST UNSUBTLE PERSON EVER so everything is really obvious and I apologize in advance.

Brienne had never envisioned herself being married, not since she was nine and understood the full implications of her looks. Before then, though, she had often revisited a fantasy of marriage, where a knight, a true knight, would come and sweep her off her feet. He would save her from danger after she had saved him. He would be beautiful and good, a lord of untold virtue. He would not be perfect, though; he would not be a better knight than Brienne. He would be brave, but troubled, but have no troubles that Brienne could not ease. And they would be in love.

But Jaime was dead.

Brienne had been at the funeral, when they had sealed the Lannister twins into their separate but adjacent crypts. The dwarf had said they would have liked that, but he had not spoken to his brother often, after he had lost his hand. He did not know him.

She had tried to convince him that, no, he would not have wanted to face his sister for all eternity, but his reason was lost to grief.

"I know," Tyrion says, looking up with his half-a-face to match her half-a-face. "But this is the right thing to do, to avoid a scandal. It is Lannister tradition. I do not... I do not wish to make anyone suspect anything."

They both know who _anyone_ is, but it is best not to name her.

"Now," he says, getting off his chair and waddling down the winding halls of Casterly Rock. "Let me sit upon my empty throne and rule with my empty title. Must find a wife. Shouldn't like for my line to run out."

Brienne was no fool. She knew a hint when she heard one. Brienne never spoke to Tyrion Lannister again, though notes were sent on black wings, from time to time.

The war was over. Her war was over. With their new queen came new rules. It was best not to make a fuss of things. It was best not to merit notice. It was best to keep your head down, get married and make babies and not ask questions. Their queen ruled with a fist to match her throne.

Brienne wonders, sometimes, if this is what her forefathers felt, when Aegon first landed upon their humble shores. New rules are in place. They are not announced in public edicts, like the times of her youth. Instead, new rules are passed without anyone's notice, while all the land sleeps precious dreams. And in the morning, people disappear.

(The divine right of royal blood has never meant less to Brienne. She thinks she is become an old bitter maid. She thinks, were that to happen, Jaime would be proud.)

Brienne suspects the marriage proposal was with the help of the imp. Their friendship was never any great thing, but his guilt and fretting was enough to consume even the great Drogon, sitting ever outside the gates of Queen's Landing. All the same, the proposal comes, and Brienne is not sure how to answer it.

She had always daydreamed about marrying a beautiful knight. It is only fitting the proposal is for The Knight of Flowers himself, and furthermore fitting that the proposal should come after his face is naught but a than a mass of scars and seared flesh. She accepts before she has time to question herself. She does not want her father's line to die out. The Dragon Queen is harsh as fire and cold as her husband's ice, but she has put new laws in effect for women like Brienne. Any children she has would be of Tarth, not a Tyrell at all.

She does not think things will go that way, of course, but in the aftermath of the greatest war since Aegon's own, it is terribly nice to dream.

(And in the North, The Wolf Queen sleeps quiet as the dead ice men scattered around her castle, now rebuilt. Her dreams are dark and full of terror, but unlike so many others, she wakes. She, too, sends Brienne notes sometimes. Brienne finds her handwriting much easier to read than Tyrion's.)

When Loras arrives, he is uglier than Brienne remembered. It's been many years, and age has added insult to the injuries done to Loras' face in the name of war. He is a quiet man, and at first Brienne thinks it is because of his ugliness, just as Brienne became a quiet maid due to her looks. But Garlan corrects her, once Loras has left the room.

"You'll have to be patient with my brother," he says. "The oil burnt some of his throat and tongue; he can talk, but it doesn't sound at all sweet, so he doesn't talk at all, if he can help it."

"I understand," Brienne says. "Do not worry." In days past, Brienne would worry she should have reassured Garland, there. She should said that she is patient and kind, and would make things as easy for Loras as she could. But she is old enough, now, to recognize courtesy for a lie. She remains silent, nodding and sipping her wine.

Their wedding is a quiet affair, with only the necessary minimum of witnesses and septons. She is to understand Ser Loras is no longer fond of spectacle. As such, she lifts the cloak onto his shoulders with a minimal of flourish. Silently, she thanks the Queen in the North for requiring the laws the Queen in the South had passed dually with her. Brienne would regret bitterly having to be dressed in green and gold.

She tries not to think of how Loras feels about being dressed in rose and azure.

Loras does not speak throughout the entire ceremony, only nods his ascent, and their kiss is quick and chaste. Their feast is much quicker, for no one knows how to jest and mock without insulting either bride or groom for their ugliness. Few words are spoken, if at all. They walk to the bedchamber in silence, and Brienne is thankful she told Loras her intentions beforehand, that there were no rights to be claimed, here, nor any obligations to be met.

"I marry you as a favor to your family and because of..." she had sighed, "because of everything." Renly. Jaime. Willas. Her father. Everyone. Everything. "You know the laws, now."

In the neatest hand Brienne had ever seen, Loras had wrote, _I know them well_. He had frowned, then, or did the best that his face could any more manage, and wrote again. _I understand_.

Brienne is no fool. She does not imagine they will ever fall in love. She does not imagine she will ever love again. But Brienne knows what it is to be ugly, to be unable to speak in greater company, to hate what others see when they look upon you.

And, most importantly, the people of Tarth know what it is to have an ugly lord, even if they're never quite sure which one's the lord between the two of them. The smallfolk very rarely call Brienne 'my lord' in Ser Loras' presence, and very rarely call her 'my lady' outside of it. Brienne finds more and more she does not care. She has never understood why she cannot be both.

She rides to the North often, for the stormlands are in alliance with the Northern queens once more, and she is one of the sworn knights for both houses. Should the alliance fall into disrepair, she will have to choose sides.

(She is so tired to choosing sides.)

So Brienne makes sure the Lady Shireen and the Wolf Queen never have cause nor chance to argue. And when she returns to Evenfall, sometimes after many months, sometimes after over a year, her castle is well in order and her husband has done well by her subjects. Their subjects, now.

Their marriage is a quiet one. There are arguments, but they are expressed in glares and hastily written notes. Over time, Brienne becomes accustomed to writing Loras missives instead of speaking to him aloud; it is more peaceful, and Brienne well admires peace.

Their son dies stillborn, as is the luck of her family. They bury little Jaime in the crypt below Evenfall, next to Galladon and Alysanne. After their daughter is born, they stop trying, a relief to them both.

As is the fashion now, they name her Sansa.

"My little dear," Brienne says, when the midwives had left the room. "You shall be the best knight there ever was."


End file.
